Dwayne Johnson is currently preparing to layeth the smacketh down on some monsters for the adaptation of classic Midway arcade game Rampage for New Line Cinema. Now Rampage movie director Brad Peyton — promoting his small horror film Incarnate– – has spoken to We Got This Covered about the tone of the film as well as confirming the mammoth creatures at its center.
“There’s the three, the lizard, the ape and the wolf, so we’re keeping it similar,” said Peyton. “With ‘Rampage,’ we are using our love of the original game as our inspiration. It’s going to be a lot more emotional, a lot scarier and a lot more real than you’d expect. So you look at that original concept about a lab that affects these animals and makes them rampage, and that’s the nugget. If they called me tomorrow to do ‘Call of Duty,’ I wouldn’t want to play any of the ‘Call of Duty’ games. I’d have to come up with something that deserves to be its own thing. That’s where a lot of these movies can go wrong… It’s a monster film, so the stuff that I did on ‘Incarnate,’ stretching my muscles in the horror space helped. Obviously, it’s a much bigger movie and it’s meant for a broader audience, but there still horror elements, there’s still a monster movie at the core.”
This will mark the third collaboration between Johnson, Flynn, Peyton and New Line, having also worked on Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and San Andreas together as well. The latter film earned over $473 million at the global box offices, making it the most successful original blockbuster of the summer 2015.
Carlton Cuse (San Andreas) and his “Colony” co-creator Ryan Condal will rewrite the script by Non-Stop screenwriter Ryan Engle, which will involve Johnson going toe-to-toe with the game’s three original beasties. Beau Flynn (Baywatch) will produce.
Released in 1986, the original Rampage put players in control of one of three monsters: A giant ape named George; a giant lizard name Lizzy; or a giant werewolf named Ralph. The game saw the monsters running amok across the United States, fighting the military, and destroying key landmarks. Several sequels were developed for the title as well, adding even more types of monsters to the playable roster and extending their path of destruction into the cosmos and even back in time.
New Line will release Rampage to theaters on April 20, 2018.
